Smoking Swap Guns in EuroLand: Sovereign Debt Buyer Beware!

Reggie Middleton submits:There are broad indications hinting that Italy and Greece are not the only countries that have used swap agreements to manipulate its budget and deficit figures. France and Portugal may be two other European economies which have resorted to similar manipulations in the past in order to qualify as part of single currency member nations (Euro Zone). Below is a small subset of the research that I have been gathering as I construct a global sovereign default model. This model is very comprehensive and thus far has indicated that quite a few (as in more than two or three) nations of significance have a 90% probability of defaulting on their debt in the near to medium term.More on this later. Now let's dig into what we have found that looks like gross manipulation of the numbers in order to hide debt in several European countries. I think I'll call it the Pan-European Ponzi. Conspiracy theorists are going to love this post.Complete Story »

By Nicholas Pardini: The main mover for the markets in Europe (and the rest of the world) over the past month has been the recent developments in the European sovereign debt crisis. It has caused volatility to remain high and severe political overhaul throughout the Eurozone. With only the 32nd largest economy in the world, the prospect of Greece defaulting does not spell a death knell for Europe.

By Daryl Montgomery: While U.S. markets closed slightly up on Monday, September 12th, panic reigned in Europe. The risks of a hard default by Greece reached 98% according to one model. Interest rates in Greece were spiraling out of control (the two-year government yield hit almost 70%) and credit default swaps on European sovereign and bank debt reached record levels again.

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
The European aid package announced over the weekend has helped boost global equity markets across the board, and it has also caused sovereign debt default risk to decline significantly over the past two days. Below we highlight 5-year credit default swap prices ($, bps) for a number of countries around the world.

My main focus on the Greek crisis is how it will impact the global economy, and especially the United States, but nobody covering this issue can avoid the morality lessons. First, Greece borrowed too much. That’s bad. Second, Greece cooked its books to conceal the magnitude of its deficit spending. That, too, is bad. Third, other European countries knew that Greece was doing this, but ignored it so as not to embarrass them or weaken the European Monetary Union. That may have been the worst error of them all.

Reggie Middleton submits:If I were to short any country, what country would that be? This is a trick question, for the fates of many European countries are now inextricably tied by what appears to be a poorly conceived methodology of handling diverse political and economic entities under a single currency without a truly authoritarian governing body. Basically, it's the old American saying, "Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians".